A Boat Story

With the 5000 fed, Jesus slips away to a quiet place.  Evening came and the disciples decided to leave without Him and so they set out to cross the Sea of Galilee to Capernaum.  It seems a bit strange when you think about it, but then, stranger things have happened.  Out there in the dark night and the rough seas, they saw Jesus walking toward them.  The scripture says they were terrified.  Were they terrified that He was walking across the waters, or because of their fear of what He might say to them about being left behind?  Whatever the case, He spoke to their fears and then in response to everything, the Words says, "Then they wanted to take Him into the boat..."  (John 6:21) 

 

Stranger than leaving Him is their response to Him out there in the dark stormy night.  Jesus is out there doing something extraordinary as He steps across the moving water.  It was a sight like none they had ever seen.  And their response is "Get in the boat!"  What they wanted Him to do in that extraordinary moment was to do what their logic and common sense said was normal.  They could not grasp the fact that something was happening beyond their ability to comprehend so by telling Him to get in the boat, they were reining in what they could not control.  Jesus was too "out of the box" for them so they wanted Him to get back into a place with them which made sense.

 

There are times in our walk with Jesus when we suddenly find ourselves in one of those "this can't be moments."   Maybe we have been praying for financial relief in a crisis, or the healing of a loved one, or the coming home of a child and suddenly it all comes together.  Instead of going first to the conclusion that Jesus is doing something we thought to be impossible in our lives, we look for an explanation or a reason.  We pray a great game, but have trouble sometimes just accepting the fact that there is no other reason for the good coming into our lives except the fact that Jesus has come to work in our lives.  When Jesus gets outside the box of conventional and expected behavior, we do what the disciples did.  We tell Him to get in the boat!